


take me back into your arms

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Animal Transformation, Fairytale Fusion, Genderfluid Character, Mind Control, Other, Resurrection, Self-Sacrifice, tam lin au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-01-11
Packaged: 2019-10-08 01:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17376923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: Caleb stares down at Molly and says, “You have to go, you need to leave, bitte—”“I came back from the dead for this, Widogast, I’m not letting go,” says Molly. He glances over to Ikithon, who flares down at him, and bares bloodstained teeth. “You hear that, dumbshit? I’m not letting go.”or: Tam Lin, but if Janet was a resurrected carnie tiefling and Tam Lin was his fucked-up wizard boyfriend and the fairies were evil wizards.





	take me back into your arms

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Anaïs Mitchell’s version of the ballad of Tam Lin, “Tam Lin (Child 39)”.
> 
> this one’s for the widomauk server exchange! heirachnid#4919, I hope you like your story. you asked for a fairytale AU and I immediately thought of Tam Lin.

Molly kisses Caleb under a sky full of stars in the city of Zadash, presses his hand to his chest, and says, “Let’s see where this goes.”

Caleb smiles and kisses back, and for the first time in a very long time, he feels something warm bloom in his chest. Something like hope, something like love, melting the ice that he’s drawn around himself like armor.

“For now,” he says to Molly, breaking away too fast, too soon, a hand on Molly’s chest over his beating heart, “I should like this to go to one of our rooms.”

“I’ll take you to mine,” Molly says, taking his hand, and they go back upstairs.

\--

But everything ends, and sometimes people run out of time.

And sometimes mistakes are made. Sometimes the past catches up to you, and the only thing you can do to keep it from swallowing the people you love whole is to stand against it, and hope they get away safely.

And sometimes you get a second chance.

\--

Molly wakes up.

He does it slow, because no one has ever accused him of being a morning person when it’s not necessary. Ornna used to complain about that, because whenever he wasn’t needed to help put the tent up and get the stands and games ready, he’d just sleep until most of the morning had slipped away. And even _then_ it would be a chore.

It’s one now.

Feeling comes back first—everything _hurts_ , and trying to move his limbs feels like trying to haul a cart laden with goods out from the muck. The best he can do is screw his eyes shut and turn over, trying to bury his face into the pillow. Just five minutes, that’s all, five more minutes and then he’ll get up. He will. He will.

Second is hearing: above him are voices, blurred and indistinct at first, like he’s underwater. Slowly, though, they start to clear, as if he’s swimming up and breaking the surface, and he hears Jester’s voice first, saying, “—him sleep for a little more! Coming back from the dead is _hard work_.”

Wait, what?

“He’s been sleeping for a whole day,” says Beau. “I’m gonna wake him up. I want him downstairs right _now_ , we can’t put off this team meeting any longer.”

Molly groans, and tries to bury his face deeper into the pillow. He’s all for team meetings, that’s fine by him, but he doesn’t want to be at one first thing in the morning after—

After—

Oh.

Oh, _god_.

Molly opens his eyes and pushes himself up off the bed. “I’m up,” he says, “I’m up—what’s this team meeting for?”

“You’re awake!” says Jester, and that’s the last coherent thing she says to Molly before she hugs and _lifts_ him off the bed like he weighs about as much as a handful of grapes. She got stronger, apparently. And more scarred. And—is her hair longer now? Yeah, it is, it falls down her front in a braid that reaches to her midsection.

Then Molly looks at Beau, and stares at the peacock that’s tattooed on her arm, feathers fanning out over the shoulder, up the side of her neck. “Did you steal my style,” he says, weakly, because she _got a peacock tattoo_ , and he thinks he’s got an idea when. “Because it doesn’t really work with the busted nose.”

Beau, perpetually-scowling Beau, actually smiles when he tells her this. It’s a miracle and a dead giveaway, if Jester’s hair wasn’t one: time has passed since he died. A _very_ long time. “Forgot how much of an asshole you were,” she says, her voice weirdly thick as she steps closer. “Fuck you, I make this tattoo work.”

“Get in here, you,” says Jester, lifting her arm. Beau chuckles and ducks in, and Molly feels her lean arms wrapping around his middle. “We missed you so _much_ , Molly.”

“So much so that you brought me back, it seems,” says Molly. “Not complaining, by the way. I’m glad.” He hadn’t wanted to die. He’d been resigned to it, certainly, had figured it would be inevitable, but at no point had he ever wanted to die, beyond hyperbolic declarations in reaction to _terrible_ hangovers.

“I wish,” says Jester, breaking away. “No, I—Molly, we didn’t just bring you back because we missed you. I really, really wish it was, but it’s not.”

“We need you,” says Beau, after a moment. “That’s why we brought you back from your dirt nap. We _need_ you.”

Oh. A cold stone of dread drops into Molly’s stomach, and sinks down, down, down. “Is that why we’re having the team meeting?” he asks.

Beau stares at him a moment, working her jaw. Then she narrows her eyes at him, and turns to Jester. “I _told you_ he was awake,” she says, folding her arms across her chest. “Your acting’s shit, Molly.”

“My acting is _perfect_ ,” says Molly, dusting himself off. He narrows his eyes down at himself—he’s dressed only in a nightgown without smalls on, and while he’s all for that in bed, he doesn’t really think it would be wise to head downstairs to a team meeting in a nightie and no underwear. “What do you need me for?”

Beau looks at Jester. Jester looks at Beau. Somehow, in the space of a few heartbeats where they’ve locked eyes with each other, they hold an entire conversation. Molly knows this because he can see how Jester worries at her lip, how Beau raises her brows up and down, how Jester exhales and frowns, how Beau shakes her head. It’s disconcerting, being on the outside, and he wonders again just how long it’s been since he died. 

Beau finally breaks her staring contest with Jester, and says, “Molly, it’s—it’s been a long while since we last saw you, and a lot of things happened since then.”

“How long, exactly?” Molly asks.

Jester says, “Two years.”

\--

Jester chatters at him, on the way down, about some of the things he’s missed out on in, fuck, the _two years_ he’s been dead in the ground, cold bones and nothing else. Molly appreciates her efforts, he really does, it’s just—

Two years is a long time.

“Hey, Jes,” says Beau, when they get to the stairs, “why don’t you go down first, yeah? Make sure nobody’s grabbed the donuts yet.”

“You’re sure?” says Jester, breaking off a story about a Happy Fun Ball of Tricks, whatever that is. “Molly?”

“Well, far be it for me to keep you from pastries,” says Molly. “I can hear your story later, but right now I think Beau wants me all to herself.”

Beau groans, and sticks her tongue out in disgust. “Don’t flatter yourself, you are _so_ not my type,” she says. “I just wanna talk privately, that’s all.”

“I can do that,” says Jester. “Do you want me to save you anything?”

“Save the bacon for me,” says Beau, and Jester skips away down the stairs, humming an unfamiliar tune. Like a sea shanty, Molly thinks, the beat rises and falls like waves on a shore. Fjord must’ve taught her that tune. “Hey,” says Beau, snapping him out of his thoughts, “you with me?”

Molly shakes his head, more to clear it of any distractions. “Yeah,” he says.

“Great,” says Beau. “You seemed kinda out of it, though. Like, Jester was talking, and you smiled and laughed at all the right parts, but soon as she was looking away?” She snaps her fingers. “You’re a shit liar, Molly.”

“I’m a very good liar,” says Molly, leaning casually against the wall. He wishes he had his coat, right now, instead of a spare set of clothes. They’re nice and all, but they’re just a bit too plain for Molly’s tastes, and he just—he misses his coat. He’d known where everything was.

“Yeah, so’s Jester, but I’m real good at spotting bullshit now,” says Beau. “And maybe I’ve seen enough people come back from the dead that I know it’s not, like, this thing you just bounce back from super fast.”

“Oh, so you’re an expert now?” Molly snidely says.

Beau meets his eyes with her own, steely gaze. There’s a scar running down her face now, cutting through her eyebrow and past her eye, like someone had tried to blind her. Failed, clearly. “Yeah,” she says, simply, and that cuts deep, right into Molly’s heart. “Lot’s happened in two years, Molly. Then again, I think you’re pretty well aware of that.”

“When did you get so damn perceptive?” Molly huffs.

“Somebody had to be,” says Beau. “Plus, we’re asking a lot of Caduceus already. Figured I’d give him a break sometimes.”

“That’s the new guy, right?” Not that new anymore, if it’s been two years. In fact, he’s been a part of the group longer than Molly. What do they even need him for now, he wonders.

“Yeah,” says Beau. She tilts her head. “We would’ve brought you back sooner than this,” she says, at last. “Could’ve used your help on a lot of things. We just—had a lot of hoops to jump through, first. We needed diamonds, we needed the spell, we needed clerics who could cast the spell. And then a year ago some shit went down and we got distracted.” Then she sighs, running a hand through her hair. The shaved sides of her head is getting a little fuzzy, he thinks. “That’s not much of an excuse, I know. If you’re pissed at us ‘cause we didn’t raise you soon as we could, I’d understand. But we need you right now, Molly.”

Molly lets out a long, slow breath, dropping his gaze from Beau’s eyes to look down at his hands. “I’m not angry,” he admits. “I’m just glad to be back at all, I don’t give a shit about how long it took. Or—not the way you think I give a shit, anyway. It’s just—I’m not exactly sure what you need me for, now.” Two _years_. Gods.

“It’s a long, shitty story, but the short version is that it’s got something to do with what went down a year ago,” says Beau. “That, and—you’re a part of the Mighty Nein. We always missed you, you were,” and she pauses, then says, somewhat reluctantly, “the best of us.”

And what is he supposed to say to _that_ from _Beau_ , of all people. He hadn’t even thought they would miss him. No one ever really missed the circus for very long, and certainly not the wildly-dressed tiefling that told fortunes and did this fine little trick with his tongue that made them feel damn good for a night. But—

They missed him. Beau and Jester have said as much. They _missed_ him, and he’d only been a part of the group maybe a month, if not less.

What does he say to that?

“How much did it cost you to say that?” he says, weakly, and Beau smiles in answer before she slugs his shoulder, hard. “Ow! Careful, I just came back from the dead.”

“Oh, fuck you, Molly,” says Beau, fond. “Now come on down. There’s a lot of things we gotta explain.”

\--

The first person to catch Molly’s attention when he comes down is, of course, Yasha. Hard to notice anybody else first, after all, even the seven-foot-tall pink-haired firbolg sitting next to her, because—well, it’s _Yasha_ , and she’s standing up, her eyes wide.

She looks good. She looks well. Her hair is no longer quite as black as it used to be, the white now creeping up past her ears before it fades to black at her roots. A blue band is tied around the hilt of her sword, like a lady’s favor, and she’s more scarred now than she used to be, but when she rushes him and lifts him clear off the ground in a ground, the strength and warmth in her hug is just about the same.

“Molly!” she says. “Thank god, I thought—I didn’t know if you’d wake back up—”

“Yasha,” says Molly, tears stinging the corners of his eyes as his arms wrap around her, because he’s missed Yasha so much, he had lost her and then she’d lost _him_ and she looks so good and she has someone’s favor and it has been so fucking long, “Yasha, _Yasha_ , thank fucking god, you’re okay, I didn’t—I knew you were, if Jester was free, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t be sorry, don’t you dare be sorry,” says Yasha, setting him down. He lets his hands drift up to her cheeks. “I missed you.”

“Missed you too, Yash,” says Molly, his voice thick. He squeezes her cheeks. “Gods, look at you!”

“I forgot about this,” laughs Yasha, and Molly graciously does not comment on how wet her laughter sounds. “I picked more flowers, do you want to see? There’s so many now, for you and for her.”

Oh, her. Zuella. “Of course,” says Molly. “Always.”

“Hey, Yasha, when you’re done, we missed him too,” calls Nott. Molly breaks away from Yasha to see the little goblin girl.

She’s changed her cloak, he realizes. It isn’t so ragged anymore, instead it’s a finely-made velvet cloak that seems to shimmer even in the low glow of the tavern’s torches. Her hair’s been cut, now curling just past her ears, and there are darker bags under her golden eyes than he’s used to seeing even on her.

“Hi, Nott,” says Molly.

Nott smiles, tiredly. She hops off her chair with ease as he bends down, and wraps her arms around his neck. “We missed you,” she says.

“I know.”

“I got you something.”

“That I didn’t know.” He breaks away then, and straightens up, tail swaying behind him. “Where is it?”

“In your pocket,” says Nott, then she scampers back to the table, taking her seat beside Jester as Molly fishes around in his trousers’ pockets. After a moment, his fingers close on something circular, the metal warm to the touch. When he tugs it out, he sees a ring painted silver, the bronze underneath showing through, and a glass diamond. Pretty enough, and he smiles before he slips it on his finger, admiring how it fits before he follows Yasha and Beau to the table.

Beau, he notes, slides in beside Yasha, who’s seated beside a firbolg, who’s seated beside Fjord.

Molly breathes a sigh of relief, when he sits beside Fjord. He’s got a beard going now, with white shot through the black, and he’s starting to grey at the temples. And he has _tusks_ now, little things that peek out past his lower lip, and gold links around his neck, a silver pendant with a real sapphire embedded in it dangling from the chain. It’s so out of place with his salt-stained armor that Molly’s pretty sure it’s magical in some way. There’s even a small hoop through his eyebrow.

“You look well,” says Molly.

“You’re looking better,” says Fjord, a real smile breaking over his face like dawn on the horizon. Then it falls away, and he sighs. “Wish we could talk under better circumstances.”

“Wish we could meet under better circumstances,” rumbles the firbolg, and now Molly looks away from Fjord and sees him. He’s _much_ taller than Yasha even sitting, and while one side of his head is shaved, Molly can see designs in it, swirls and even a little lollipop, like he let Jester at it. His hair falls over one shoulder, mostly pink, but it fades at the tips to white, and—is that pink lichen on his armor? “I’m Caduceus Clay. You must be Mollymauk Tealeaf.” Caduceus Clay inclines his head, and smiles at him, calm as a summer breeze. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. These people have told me quite a lot about you.”

“Only good things, I hope,” says Molly, with a bright grin.

“Yeah,” says Caduceus, “and I can tell even without their stories.” He takes a sip of tea from his little cup, slightly chipped. It looks almost like a toy in his large hands. “You made a beautiful garden.”

“You made a garden out of me?” says Molly, as everyone else around him immediately diverts their attention away to their food and drink. “Is it still there?”

“Far as I know, yeah,” says Caduceus. “It’s really quite nice, and the mushrooms make for fantastic tea.”

“It gets you super high too,” says Jester, who apparently can’t resist.

Molly preens a little. This is weird, but he’ll roll with it. “If you still have some mushrooms left over, I would love to try some,” he says. “But other than that—” He pauses, then counts. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven—

Including Molly, there’s only seven people here. There should be eight.

“Where’s Caleb?” he asks, dread curdling in his stomach like milk gone sour. “He’s—Did I just miss him going to the bookstore? Typical.” He huffs out a laugh, tries to ignore the hysterical edge in it. “Where’s the bookstore? I’ll go surprise him.”

Fjord hesitates. “Molly—”

“I mean,” says Molly, “kinda rude, just going to the bookstore right before I wake up, but that’s forgivable. He—He _is_ here, right?”

Beau breathes out, slow, and her shoulders slump as though a weight has pressed down on them all of a sudden. “No,” she says, that awful word, “no, he’s not. That’s why you’re here, actually. It’s part of why we brought you back.”

\--

When Molly woke up, so long ago, Caleb had grabbed his spellbook from underneath his discarded coat, and was meticulously drawing something on the paper. He’d stuck his tongue out a corner of his mouth, lost in concentration, and Molly didn’t dare interrupt for fear of breaking the fragile peace that had settled over them in the morning light.

Eventually, though, Caleb’s pen stopped scratching across the paper. Caleb looked up, saw Molly, and smiled. “ _Guten Morgen,_ ” he said.

Molly hummed, and stretched out under the covers like a satisfied cat. He was somewhat sore from last night’s activities, but it was the good kind of sore. “Good morning to you too,” he said. “What’re you doing?”

“Studying spells,” said Caleb. “Just in case. And copying the ones I remember, as well.”

“I thought it was just one and done,” said Molly, sitting up in bed. He groped blindly around the bedside drawer for some of his jewelry, then started putting them back onto his horns. “I didn’t realize you had to study more.” A sudden thought occurred to him, and he voiced it: “Even with your memory?”

“Just because I can remember everything does not mean I do not have to refresh my memory every so often,” said Caleb. “Besides. I like studying magic.”

Molly leaned against his shoulder then, shifting around so they were both comfortable. “What’s this spell for?” he asked. “And why does it need so many circles?”

“Oh, this one?” said Caleb. “This is, ah, _was ist das Wort_? It’s for making a small hut to sleep in, one that is impenetrable to anyone but those you like very much.” He tapped the page with his finger. “I cannot cast it just yet, but I remember the shape of the spell. And it needs circles because that is how the gesture to summon it is done…”

And there he went, this magical, brilliant wizard of his, speaking of spells in so reverent a way that Molly couldn’t help but smile. Couldn’t help but think, _gods, do I love you._

And then he realized, _Oh. I love you._

\--

“We were in Rexxentrum for a job,” Beau begins, after Molly’s knocked back half a tankard of ale, just enough to steady his shaking hands but not so thoroughly as to dull his senses, “and we thought it was gonna be, if not easy, then at least it was just one of those jobs, the ones that pay well enough that you don’t really give a shit about how hard it is. At least not until we got there. And we didn’t think it would be that hard.”

“Like, it was a little bit hard,” says Jester, “because we were gonna be breaking into someone’s library for some magic stuff that the Gentleman’s friend wanted! But they were really small-time, he said, and we’d be paid a lot, so we didn’t think a whole lot of it. Anyway, the library looked really cool, and we had Caleb run Detect Magic while we looked around.” She shows off the new ring on her hand, a beautiful golden ring with an inscription that Molly can’t quite read and a softly-glowing diamond in the center, and says, “That’s where I got this. It’s a ring that you can use to store a spell for later. There’s a lot of Cure Wounds in it, because we all suck at not getting hurt.”

“I don’t,” says Nott. Her eye twitches.

“I love you, and you are a very bad liar,” says Jester.

“I was checking out this book on warlock pacts,” says Fjord, “their history and all that, and then Caleb suddenly went quiet and said something that worried me. Something about finding what he needed. Then he all but shoved me out of the way and grabbed this one book. Next thing I know?” He snaps his fingers. “Caduceus over here says he hears footsteps, racing down to us. And it’s not just the one.”

“They’d strung up an Alarm spell over that one particular book,” says Caduceus. “Not any of the other books, just that one. Caleb had seen it and figured it was important enough that if they’d strung an Alarm over that, then it was something he’d need. The next thing any of us knew, we were running through a tunnel that Nott found behind a bookcase.” He sighs, leaning forward onto his elbows, fingers toying with the periapt hanging around his neck. Molly recognizes it—that’s the one that used to hang around _his_ neck. “We were on our way out of Rexxentrum when we were found.”

“They couldn’t find Caleb, or the book, not while Caleb had it,” Yasha says, looking down at her hands, worrying at her lower lip. “But—they tracked me. I don’t—I don’t know _how_ they knew to track me. If I did I would’ve kept them away from the group.” She looks up now to meet Molly’s eyes, and says, “They found us at the inn. We fought them. Fjord died.”

“Not that long, Jes was there,” says Fjord.

“Caleb—Caleb gave me this,” says Nott now, and she fishes a golden pendant out of her scarf. With a start, Molly remembers: he’d seen that around Caleb’s neck, once upon a time. He’d been insistent on not taking it off. “He said it would keep me from being tracked. He said he wasn’t going to let them hurt us, get me, or Yasha. He said—He said so many things, he said _please stay safe_ , and then he turned around and he told the mages who’d found us that he was done running, and he called them by _name_. Astrid and Eodwulf. He distracted them and we had to run, he said he was going to catch up but he was _lying_ , that time. He was never going to catch up.”

“They took him,” says Beau. “That’s what we know. We left him—yeah, I know, we had to, but we don’t leave people behind. Especially not in the hands of the same shitheads who turned them into their toy soldier once upon a time, who’d do it again if they could. But, god-fucking-dammit, we fucking _did_ , because it was a shit situation all around, and he didn’t give us a choice.”

Molly stares down at his ale, his gut twisting into painful knots, his heart cracking from this story. What is he supposed to do, with that? Are they hanging all their hopes on Molly? Gods, that’s a horrendously stupid thing to do. Molly’s a lot of things, but he’s not a repository for anyone’s hopes. And Caleb—oh, _Caleb_. What had happened to him? What’s happening to him now? “Did you go back?” he asks.

“Of course!” says Jester.

“I never wanted to abandon him in the first place,” says Nott, “he had to cast Suggestion so I’d go at all!” She slams her fist down on the table, and Molly jerks his head up to see furious tears in her golden eyes. “We went back, of course we went back! We came back _twice_ , but every time they threw us back! They knew we were coming, because we would never leave him behind for long, and that—that _bastard_ would gloat about how Caleb was his now forever and Yasha would be too and there was nothing any of us, not me and not anyone else, could do about it!”

“I was not there for either attempt,” says Yasha, sounding more than a little hurt. “I could’ve helped.”

“Which we planned, ‘cause like hell was that Ikithon shit getting his hands on you,” says Beau, fiercer than fire. “He got Caleb, he’s not getting you.”

“I’ve got to agree with Beau here,” says Molly. “We’re not losing any more people to this—Ikithon bastard.” Then he looks around the table. “So where do I come in?” he asks.

“They don’t know you,” Nott says. “They know us way too well, but they don’t know you. You can sneak into where they’re keeping Caleb and sneak him back out, and in the meantime we can be a distraction!”

“That’s—a plan, I suppose,” says Molly.

“And we’ve got to get going with it soon,” says Beau. “They’re sending all their best mages out to Empress Krynn’s palace next week. Officially, it’s to open the channel for peace talks. Unofficially, we have it on good authority they’re planning to assassinate somebody while they’re there, and keep the war going so they can keep their fucked up shit going too.”

“They’re going to be holding a parade in a week, to celebrate the peace talks,” says Caduceus. “We find Caleb before it starts, then we vanish with him, and in the meantime we make an attempt at, if not stopping the war, then at least making sure it doesn’t escalate any further.”

“That’s a very tall order,” says Molly.

“Yeah, it’s not the best plan we’ve ever made,” says Caduceus. “But we have a week to get there. We can put something together.”

“And it’s gonna be foolproof,” says Jester, with so much confidence that Molly knows she’s lying to herself. And not doing a very good job of it.

Shit.

“Well,” he says, swirling his drink around in his tankard, “I’m in.”

\--

Three days into their trip to Rexxentrum, Molly takes last watch with Nott.

They don’t talk, not at first. Molly has a thousand bits of advice he wishes he was able to pass on to her, but she seems to have figured out a good number of them by herself. Mostly, she seems—not _okay_ , not really, but calm. Calculated, in how she’s tinkering around with a small cache of blackpowder and her crossbow bolts.

“Whatcha doing?” says Molly.

“Making explosive bolts,” says Nott, holding a bolt up carefully and squinting at it. “The next time I see Ikithon, I’m going to blow up his fucking head.”

“...that’s fair,” says Molly, after a moment. He knows what Beau’s told him—the man had been Caleb’s teacher, but had turned him into a weapon at the tender age of _sixteen_ and then tossed him aside when he finally broke under the pressure. The man’s a prick of the highest order, and if Nott wants to blow his head up, Molly won’t stop her. “Still, the plan’s not exactly _a_ plan, is it? Do we even know where they’re keeping Caleb?”

“Do you have any better plans?” Nott challenges, and Molly can’t really answer that. He sighs, instead, and looks away from her and into the treeline.

Where—Where something is _moving_. His tail very slowly, very carefully comes around, to pat Nott’s shoulder and get her attention.

“What now?” says Nott.

Molly puts a finger to his lips, then points to the trees. Actually the bushes, rustling around. It could be a rabbit. He’s got a feeling it’s not.

Nott takes her crossbow up off the ground. “Show yourself!” she shouts. “Show yourself or I’m gonna blow up the bush with you in it!”

“Nott,” says Molly, reaching out to grab her shoulder. “It’s probably a rabbit. Calm down.”

“Do you really think that?”

“It’s likely.” He wishes he sounded a lot more convincing than that. If it were a rabbit, he wouldn’t have prodded Nott with his tail. “Just—keep that at the ready, yeah?”

Nott, in answer, loads a crossbow bolt.

The bushes rustle again, and—a cat emerges. A very familiar orange cat, with dark stripes criss-crossing its back. It hops up on the log next to the two of them and meows irritably.

“Frumpkin?” says Nott, disbelieving. “Wait, if you’re here, does that mean Caleb sent you? Is—Is Caleb there?” Gods, she sounds so young, so hopeful that maybe, just maybe, her boy is back.

Frumpkin meows, mournful and low, and Molly doesn’t need to know cat to know he means _no_. Nott’s face just drops, her ears drooping as she lowers her crossbow. “Oh,” she says. Then she frowns. “Well, how are you here, then? Why are you here?”

“He’s a _cat_ ,” says Molly.

“He’s a magic cat!” says Nott. “And he’s Caleb’s cat! He wouldn’t be here if it didn’t have something to do with Caleb.”

Frumpkin pads over, and winds himself around Molly’s ankles, purring away. Nott reaches a hand out towards his head, tentative, and Frumpkin hisses at her in warning.

“Rude!” Nott huffs. “I’ve eaten you before and I can do it again!”

“Maybe that’s why he’s not quite so thrilled about you,” Molly dryly suggests, picking the cat up off the ground. Frumpkin immediately squirms out of his grasp and lands on the grass once more, then starts walking in the direction of the bushes. He doesn’t get more than five feet before he pauses and looks back, and meows irritably.

Nott steps forward.

Frumpkin hisses again, tail flicking agitatedly about. He only calms when Nott steps back, which is strange and, Molly will admit, a little bit unexplainable even if the cat holds grudges over being eaten. He doesn’t think so. He steps forward instead of Nott, and Frumpkin meows approvingly.

Nott chews on her lower lip. “I think he just wants you,” she says.

“That’s not suspicious at all,” says Molly, a tattooed hand resting on the scimitar hanging from his belt. “Nott? Stay behind me.”

“You really think you have to ask?” Nott scoffs. “If anything goes wrong, I’ll message Yasha and tell her you’re in trouble. She can get very, very loud when she wants to be.”

Molly winces. Yeah, he’s pretty sure that would get Yasha very, very loud.

Frumpkin meows again, impatiently. He pads back over to Molly and bats at his boots, raking his claws across the leather to express his displeasure at being kept waiting. Molly sighs, and then falls in step behind the cat, walking into the trees. Behind him, he hears twigs crack, then nothing more. When he glances back, he only sees the barest hint of a dark shape moving in the corners of his eyes.

He turns back, keeps going.

Eventually, Frumpkin leads him to a large clearing in the midst of the forest, much larger than the little grove he and the rest of the Mighty Nein has set up camp in. In the middle of it is an ancient, gnarled oak tree, its leaves as green as emeralds, like a tree right out of a picture book for children. No tree is that picturesque. Not without some fey magic afoot.

And there _is_ fey magic afoot. Molly knows this, because there’s a glowing portal right in the middle of the tree.

For maybe the first time in a very long time, Molly remembers: Frumpkin is a creature of the fey. Sure, he’d been aware of that while Caleb had him, but now he’s staring at a glowing portal in a giant oak tree and Frumpkin is just—licking his chops, near it, waiting for Molly to step right through.

“You realize I’ve heard the stories about the Feywild, right?” he says, crouching down so he’s a little more level with Frumpkin. “I’m going to need a reassurance that you’re not going to fuck me over when I step inside.” Because he will, he knows. It’s a bad idea all around, but then he has a—a _hunch_ that this could help. That Frumpkin might be able to tip the scales in their favor.

Frumpkin jumps into his lap, puts a paw on his nose, and meows. Then he jumps off, and trots back towards the portal, pausing only to look back at Molly.

Molly sighs, and straightens up. “Suppose that’s as good a sign as any,” he says.

Frumpkin steps through.

After a moment spent looking around for Nott, catching sight of her eyes in the bushes, Molly steps through too.

\--

Molly’s never been to the Feywild, before. None of them have, with the exception of Jester, who had once regaled Molly with the time the Traveler took her to a field of sentient grass when she was eight, and they played hide and seek for hours. It had been a change of pace from the usual stories, where people who went into the Feywild risked getting _fucking eaten_ in the _best-case scenarios_ , but then she’d had her god keeping her safe.

Molly does not have a god personally keeping watch over him. He keeps one hand firmly on the hilt of a sword, even as it feels as if—as if every cell in his body is being stretched to its very limits, a rubber band on the verge of snapping, before they suddenly snap back into place. He lands on his feet, stomach churning with unease, and only barely manages to keep his dinner from coming back up his throat.

“Fuck,” he says, hoarsely, “I felt better when I was _dying_.”

“Shut up, you’ll live,” says an irritated voice, to his left, tinged with a faint Zemnian accent. Immediately Molly stands and whips around, and sees—

Someone, apparently, a man with features that are less _young_ and more _timeless_. His hair is red as fire, spilling down his back in wild curls, and his ears poke out of those red, red curls, too pointed even for an elf. They flick like an annoyed cat’s, and the man’s bright blue, almost feline eyes are narrowed at Molly. He fiddles with his robes, a mass of reddish and orange hues on what seems like leather one moment and fur the next, with dark stripes on the sides.

It’s those stripes that cinch it.

“Frumpkin?” says Molly, in shock. He rubs at his eyes, because yeah, this is officially weirder than even Molly is used to. And he’s from a circus, he’s used to a lot of weird.

“Congratulations,” says Frumpkin, huffily tugging a sleeve down his arm. “ _Ja,_ it’s me. Do you know how long it took for me to find you?”

“I was dead for two years,” says Molly.

“I know that,” says Frumpkin. “I felt it when you came back.”

“You what,” says Molly.

“Caleb told me to follow everything you said once,” says the cat-not a cat. “I don’t have the sort of bond with you that I have with Caleb, but I know when you’re dead or alive because I feel this _tug_.” He shivers, looks around the place—they are in a copse of trees, all of them in the bloom of spring, the leaves shifting color, the bark shining like diamonds in the light. “That’s the only reason why I’m even managing to bend the rules like this. If it wasn’t for that tug, I wouldn’t be able to talk to you right now. Technically speaking, Mollymauk Tealeaf, you count as my master as well.”

“Great, I’ve always wanted a magical cat,” Molly mutters, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not a wizard. What did you even want to talk to me about?”

“Caleb,” says Frumpkin. “He cared about you. Do you care about him?”

That is something of an understatement. “Yes,” he says, because that’s not a lie, at least. And trying to lie to a fey creature probably won’t end well for Molly. Contrary to popular belief, sometimes he does have some sense of self-preservation.

“Then I want to make a deal,” says Frumpkin, and his low voice edges on desperation. With a start, Molly realizes: Frumpkin is _desperate_. Caleb must be in even more dire straits than everyone’s thought if his familiar is bending rules and making deals, without Molly even approaching him first. “I will give you information on how to steal Caleb back from his master and a boon to help you, if you will only do two things for me.”

“Knew there was gonna be a catch,” says Molly. “What do you want?” Maybe he can talk his way into a deal that won’t get him in even deeper shit.

“I want Caleb back,” says Frumpkin, wringing his hands. They’re long and spindly, an aristocrat’s slender fingers, in contrast to Molly’s own sword-calloused hands. “When you have freed him, as soon as you can, give him incense and charcoal and have him summon me back.”

That’s—not as terrible as Molly had braced himself for. “What’s the other thing?” he asks, not quite willing to make the deal just yet.

“Get me a fish,” says Frumpkin. Yep, there it is.

“Is this a magical fish, then?” Molly asks. “Or a fish I’d have to fight myself? Or a fish that only appears in the light of the full moon when a half-elf widow cries seven tears into a lake by a green glen and her cow jumps over the moon—”

“ _Verdammt_ , Tealeaf, I just want a fish,” says Frumpkin with a huff. “I haven’t had it in too damn long. I don’t need a magical fish or a fish that you fought yourself. If you don’t want to catch one, you can just buy one at a market and I will call our contract fulfilled.” He inclines his head. “Although I do like anchovies,” he concedes.

“That’s it?” says Molly, scratching the back of his head. That is a pathetically easy thing to do, honestly. He could just buy a jar of dried fish and put it in front of Frumpkin, and the deal would be done. Which is—

Which is the point, isn’t it. Frumpkin wants Caleb back as much as Nott does, as Molly does, as the rest of them do. He’s bending rules and reaching to Molly just for the sliver of a chance that he could help, somehow. He’s desperate enough to try.

And Molly’s desperate enough to sigh and say, “Fine. Deal.” He holds his hand out, and says, “Should I cut my palm to really seal it, or—”

“Archeart, no,” says Frumpkin, his face scrunching up in disgust. Like the cat he so often chooses to be, he thinks. “A handshake is enough.” So saying, he takes Molly’s hand, too-slender fingers slipping into Molly’s and giving a good, firm shake. “There. The contract is made, and I can grant you what you seek.”

“You lured me here,” says Molly.

“Technically you came to this portal seeking something of your own free will,” says Frumpkin. “But now—I give you a boon.” He draws something out of his robes: a pair of bracers, a little like Beau’s. “These will make your feet lighter, and you’ll have a better chance of not getting hit once you have attuned to them. And you’re going to need them, soon enough.”

“What do you mean?” Molly asks, taking the bracers from Frumpkin’s hands and slipping them on. They fit snugly around his forearms, like they were tailor-made just for him.

“Your plan to steal Caleb out before the parade won’t work,” says Frumpkin, bluntly. “Your friends have attacked the tower too many times, they’ll be prepared for them there. You’ll have to steal him during the parade, if you want the best chance of getting him back.”

“This is the same parade that’s going to be bristling with guards and full of angry mages, right?” says Molly, already picturing the bloody, bloody scene and wincing. “How am I to do that without being turned into a pretty pincushion?”

“Pull him down from his horse and hold on tight,” says Frumpkin. “I was able to bend the rules, just a little bit—his _master_ ,” and he spits the word like it’s venom, “made him wear a necklace that can change his form, and the chain it dangles on means that he is under Ikithon’s control. You must hold on to him through every change, no matter how badly it hurts, no matter if he bites or burns or claws at you. No matter what. When the changes are done, you have to rip the chain off.”

“That all sounds easy,” says Molly, with dread sinking deep into his stomach. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess it’s going to be rough.”

“It will be,” says Frumpkin. “But this is the best chance you’re going to have. You’re unknown to the mages and the guards, they’ll have to get down off their horses if they want to effectively cast without a panicked horse throwing them off, and if you want to keep the war from escalating, something like this in such a public place would turn their triumph into an embarrassment.”

“And if I fail?” says Molly.

“Then you’re probably dead,” says Frumpkin, with a shrug. “Don’t die. You only just got back.”

\--

They’d watched the stars together once, on the way to the Labenda Swamp. Not much else to do, everyone else was asleep and there wasn’t even a twig cracking in the bushes around them. The only sound was the sound of snoring and crickets, and those Molly was familiar with.

He sat next to Caleb, who was idly petting Frumpkin. He pointed at a collection of bright stars and said, “The Thief.”

“The Jester,” said Caleb, promptly.

Molly laughed. “Really?” he asked. “I always thought it looked like Nott, honestly. Look, those two stars could be her ears.”

“ _Ja_ , I think so too,” said Caleb, scratching Frumpkin behind his ears. The cat meowed and stretched out, as satisfied as any actual cat would be. “But my father and my teachers would insist it was the Jester, and more fool you for saying otherwise.”

“More fool them, too,” said Molly, leaning against Caleb’s side. He shifted around somewhat, so his horns wouldn’t get in the way. He loved them, but sometimes they could be a bit inconvenient to work with. “There, that one—Mona and Yuli called it the Scorpion.”

“The Serpent,” said Caleb.

“Then what’s that bit sticking out of its tail?” Molly asked.

“That is a mouse dangling from his mouth,” said Caleb. “You sort of—it is upside-down, you have to tilt your head a little.”

“Scorpion’s better,” Molly decided, the tip of his tail dragging lightly along the ground. “Do you know what that one is?” he asked, pointing to another constellation, twinkling brightest of them all above them. In truth they seemed like the stick figures Toya used to draw, sometimes, when she told him stories back in the early days when he only had the one word, when the world seemed so large and so new and he felt so small and overwhelmed.

 _The Lovers,_ she’d called them.

“The Lovers,” said Caleb, and there was a commonality after all. “For the star-crossed lovers who died in each other’s arms. The gods plucked their bodies from the earth and turned them into stars, because their love had united a kingdom, and that was an act to be rewarded.”

Mona, Yuli and Toya had thought the story of the Lovers in the stars romantic, Gustav had called it a good idea for a show, and Ornna had made a face and called it hopelessly romantic drivel, which was rich of her since Molly’d seen her private novels. As for Molly himself—the Lovers was nice to look at, most nights.

It was shining now, bright pinpricks of light in the night sky. The fire was crackling, and the glow of it gave Caleb’s hair a soft glow. His eyes were a soft blue, like the waters of a still, deep lake. Molly hadn’t known what the phrase _drowning in your eyes_ really felt like before now, but this moment—this moment was close. Molly wanted to wake up to those eyes, watching him, tomorrow and the next day and the next and the next, as long as Caleb would let him share his bed.

He leaned forward, his hand skimming up Caleb’s arm. He felt him shiver, saw those startlingly blue eyes grow dark as Molly settled his fingers at the very back of Caleb’s neck.

“Hello,” Molly whispered.

“ _Hallo_ ,” Caleb said, the corners of his mouth quirking upward. Molly’s heart beat fast against his ribcage, victorious—Caleb smiling like this always felt like a small victory.

“Would you mind terribly if I kissed you?” Molly asked.

“Not at all,” said Caleb, and drew him in.

\--

The Mighty Nein move fast, after Molly gets back and tells them about his deal, about the plan. Molly is a little bit impressed, somewhere in between the yawning abyss of the sheer terror that he’ll fail. He won’t, of course. It’s just—

A lot of hope to pin on someone, really.

“I know it’s a lot of hope, Molly,” says Yasha, as the two sort through the magical items that they’ve dug up from their bags, clothes, persons, assholes, and even the cart. Jester is busy forging an invitation to Rexxentrum’s festivities that Molly will be carrying inside, falsely signed by Starosta Alfidus Calvane, who Fjord had called _a right piece of work_ , Caduceus is cooking lunch, and Beau, Nott and Fjord are apparently practicing a maneuver that’s just picking Nott up and tossing her as hard as possible.

“About a year’s worth of it,” says Molly. “I’ve handled worse, telling fortunes.”

“You mean you’ve gently guided worse,” says Yasha. “This isn’t gentle guidance, this is—dropping you in the middle of shit and expecting you to swim in it.”

“You learned poetry while I was away,” Molly says, impressed. He holds up a ring with a small sapphire that glints in the light. “I’m proud.”

Yasha huffs a small laugh, and bumps his shoulder with hers. “If you think that’s poetry, wait till you hear the song Jester composed for your dick,” she says.

“I shall, with bated breath,” says Molly, as gravely as possible. He slides the sapphire onto his finger, and holds it up. “What do you think?” he asks.

“It’s pretty,” says Yasha, “but it’s a ring that keeps you from drowning. It’s not really going to do anything.” She sighs. “I’m sorry we’re hanging so much on you, when you’ve just come back. I swear, if we had any other choice, if we had any other plan—”

“Hey,” says Molly, reaching out to lace his fingers with hers. “I—honestly I don’t _like_ it either, this is so far out of my area of expertise that I don’t even know where to even start bullshitting. But I died for Beau.” He nods towards Beau, who’s hefting Nott up into the air with a grunt. “I’d die for you, for anyone here, and call it a good death. And Caleb is—”

He falters, hands stilling over a simple silver ring, with Sylvan words inscribed on the inside. He doesn’t know what it says, but he picks it up and turns it over in his hand. On the outside is an engraving of a star.

He rubs his thumb over the star, and thinks of the Lovers.

“You care about him,” says Yasha.

“Well, yes,” says Molly. “I care about all of you.”

“You’re in love with him,” says Yasha, baldly, but at the very least she does it quietly too. Molly closes his hand around the ring, its cold metal growing warmer against his skin, and looks up to meet Yasha’s mismatched eyes. He sees the sadness, first, and remembers—she’d loved someone, before. “Aren’t you?”

Molly exhales. “Yes,” he says, and it’s perhaps the first time he has ever said as much, out loud. He’d certainly never told Caleb, the man seemed barely receptive to _friendship_ (with some benefits), let alone something like a romantic relationship. “Suppose I should’ve said something about that to you earlier,” he says, now.

“I figured it out,” says Yasha. “You were going back and forth between your room and his, I wondered if you were sleeping together.” She tilts her head towards his hand, the one that’s closed around the silver ring, and says, “I’ve worn that one. It’s a good one. It makes you better at standing up to hard hits.”

“I’ll have it, then,” says Molly, his hand opening slowly. There’s an impression of a star right there on his palm now. “S’pose I should’ve known you’d figure it out, huh? You’ve always known me too well.”

“And you know me too well,” says Yasha, for the briefest moment glancing away from Molly to Beau. Her face goes soft, and suddenly Molly remembers: it’s been two years. There’s a gap in his knowledge, now, and this is one that he minds all of a sudden, because—well, it’s Yasha, and she’s grown strangely fond of Beau in the time he was dead. Then Yasha glances back at him and says, “I’m coming along, this time.”

Her tone brooks no arguments. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you,” says Molly. “But—well. Why couldn’t you, the first few times?”

“Because they timed it when I was away,” says Yasha. “Because when we first met Ikithon, after the Victory Pit, he cast— _something_ on me, and it took a very long time for anyone to even realize something had happened.” She twirls a thin braid around her finger, and Molly tamps down on the bile rising in his throat. That _fucking_ bastard. “So they’ve been waiting until I leave so they can go to Rexxentrum, because they don’t want what happened to Caleb to happen to me.”

“And now?” says Molly.

Yasha picks up a pair of boots, holds them up to the sunlight. The etchings along their sides look a little bit like wings. “If you click these together, they make you go faster for ten minutes,” she says. “It’s a little like Caleb cast Haste on you, but without being exhausted afterwards.”

“ _Yash_ ,” says Molly.

“We need all the people we can get,” Yasha says. “I’m willing to risk it. I don’t like coming near someone who tried to—to _control_ me, but. I ran once, and Zuella died for it.” Her jaw sets, firm. “I won’t do it again. Not when someone I care about is on the line. Not when I’ve only just gotten you back.”

And—well, what is he going to say to that? Yasha’s made up her mind, won’t be budged no matter what anyone says, so Molly just sighs. “I’ll have the boots, then,” he says. “I don’t want to get shot at before I even get to Caleb.”

“Good choice,” says Yasha, pushing the boots into his hands. “You have to attune to them first, though, before they will work for you.”

“No time like the present,” says Molly, and sticks his current boot out, wriggling it in her lap. “Help me get these things off,” he says. “The laces are always a bitch.”

\--

Caduceus finds him hours afterwards, fiddling with his cards. “You’re missing one card,” he says, startling the shit out of Molly. He’s lucky Molly’s cards don’t go flying everywhere, gods. “We, ah, left it at your grave. It’s probably been taken over by the elements by now.”

“I noticed,” Molly says, after getting his heart rate back down to a less excited level. He’d shuffled his deck and counted the cards and come up short, and his heart had sunk into his stomach when he realized it was _his card_ , the Moon. “I _thought_ the readings I did were missing something.” Like the Moon. And words, because they’re a little waterlogged.

Caduceus hums, then says, “I did get you something.” He pulls a small pouch out from his belt, then unties the little string holding it closed. A deck of tarot cards, tied with a silver string, falls out onto his large, furred hand. They’re clean and pristine, their backs lined with gold and silver, gleaming in the fading sunlight. “I found this in Zadash,” he says. “Figured you’d like it.”

Molly takes the deck from him, and reverently unties the string around the deck. He fans the deck out, then slides them all back into a stack, starts shuffling with ease. It’s like slipping back into an old, worn, but still warm coat, and Molly, just for fun, pulls a card from the new deck.

It’s the Moon card. The Moonweaver smiles up at him, her eyes warm and kind even in an illustration. Molly smiles, and slips the card back into the deck.

“Thank you,” he says to Caduceus, putting the deck into a coat pocket. “If you like, I can do a reading for you. Uh, tomorrow, though, I’ve got to do some shit over this deck first.”

“It’s fine,” says Caduceus, ears pricking upwards in interest. “I’d love a reading, somewhere down the line, but we’re going to be a little busy in the next few days, I think. And, oh, yeah.” He snaps his fingers, then reaches up behind his neck and undoes the chain of the periapt. “This is actually what I came here to do,” he says, pressing the necklace into Molly’s hand.

Molly chokes, and says, “Don’t you need it?”

“From what you’ve told us about this plan,” says Caduceus, “I’ve got a feeling _you_ might need it more than I do.” He taps a blunt fingernail against his breastplate and says, cheerfully, “Besides, my sister makes armor to last.”

Molly eyes the green armor, the pink lichen growing along the side. Is that even natural? He’s only got two years’ worth of memory to go off of, but he’s pretty sure pink lichen doesn’t exactly occur in nature. “If we ever meet her,” he says, finally, “I think I might ask for some armor, myself. Would she mind?”

“Eh, not at all,” says Caduceus, with a shrug. “I think she would mind that you’ve been knocking around without much armor, really.”

“All of mine rotted away,” says Molly, dryly.

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” says Caduceus. Then he pauses. “You okay with this?” he asks. “This burden is a lot to take. Especially if you’ve only just come back. If there were any other option—”

“I’m all right,” says Molly, lying.

“Well, it’s nice that you’re trying to be reassuring,” says Caduceus, unfazed, “but you’re the one with the most important part of this plan riding on you. That’s something that can strain a person.” And gods damn it, he isn’t wrong, but why does he have to be so damn _perceptive_ about this?

“If we want Caleb back, I don’t see I’ve got a choice,” says Molly, with a shrug. Even as he says that, he knows that’s not entirely true—he could’ve just said no. He didn’t need to take the deal. He doesn’t really need to do anything, every step he took had been of his own will. The thing is he _can’t_ not do anything, not if someone he loves is on the line. Especially not if it’s Caleb. “If I’ve got to, I’ll just grin and bear it. Worked so far.”

“You’re not the only one who wants him back,” says Caduceus. “You don’t have to bear this alone, Mr. Mollymauk.”

Gods, that’s just a knife in the heart. Molly looks down at the periapt, pulsing softly, warmly in his hand, slowly beginning to match his own heartbeat. “Did he ever,” he starts, then stops. “What did he tell you about me?”

“He said you were a unique character,” says Caduceus. “He seemed to miss you quite a bit, although he never really said. I figured you were someone special to him.” The way he says _someone special_ makes it clear that he’s figured out what Molly and Caleb were to each other, and gods, they probably haven’t made a great go of this _secret relationship_ thing if someone Molly never met before he came back from the dead has their number.

Molly presses the periapt close to his chest. “He’s special to me too,” he admits, and the words slip out so easily.

Caduceus doesn’t say anything, just reaches out to pull Molly close. “We’ve got a better chance of getting him back now,” he says, patting Molly’s back, and oh, okay, he’s warm and fuzzy. This is maybe the nicest hug that Molly has ever had, and he’s including Yasha’s hugs in that category. Sorry, Yash. “And we’ll be at your back, the whole time.”

Molly breathes out, slow. “I believe you,” he says, honestly.

\--

“Oh, hey,” says Beau, when they’re just a day away from Rexxentrum, “jeez, I forgot about this.”

“Forgot about what?” Molly asks, leaning over. He’s helping her with making the cart look less like it’s _theirs_ and more like a cart they rented for the trip up here. Even now, out of the corner of his eye, he can see Caduceus and Jester carefully painting brown paint over the words _THE MIGHTY NEIN (will fuck you up!)_ while, in the inn, Fjord presumably very carefully ties and dyes Yasha’s hair into something a little less obviously Xhorhasian.

Nott ambles over, squints, and says, “Oh, that’s a really nice—oh, _shit_ , is that the same dress?”

“My dad’s shitty wedding gift,” says Beau, lifting out—oh. _Wow_. It’s a dress that’s absolutely wasted on Beau, all right, red as roses with delicate green swirls that then overtake the red of the skirt. Little sequins have been sewn onto the front, catching the light as Beau turns it this way and that. “Thought I left this when we left Kamordah.”

“You got married?” says Molly.

“Nah,” says Beau, “we actually just had to fake a wedding. Said this used to be my mom’s.” She inspects it critically. “I think he just bought it for sale.”

“I took it,” says Nott. “It was lying right there, and I had the Itch, and he was an _awfully grumpy_ person.”

An idea stirs in the back of Molly’s mind. “Hey,” he says, “wanna piss your father off even more?”

“It’s really cute that you think I haven’t exhausted that avenue,” says Beau, dryly.

“What if I wear the dress?”

Beau stares at him, slack-jawed. “Wait, what?”

“Are you gonna wear that to Rexxentrum?” Nott asks, catching up far quicker than Beau. “I don’t think you can even fight in it! I mean, look!” She holds up the skirt. “You’d trip!”

“I can make a couple of quick alterations,” says Molly, plucking the dress from Beau’s grasp and inspecting it for himself now. “Let the waistline out a bit, cut the skirt up so I can move around, definitely needs a belt to keep my swords in, and if we’ve got leather armor I might wear that underneath. Otherwise—Beau? I’m very much into this.”

“You can have it,” says Beau, waving the dress away. “It’ll look even worse on you than it did on me, and god, my dad would be _so fucking pissed_.”

“You know what would tie it all together?” says Nott, suddenly, and Molly turns to look at her digging around in her pouch. “I got some flowers here,” she says, “for a little bit of good luck. I picked roses just _today_.” So saying, she pulls out a small bouquet of red roses, slightly crushed from having been in her bag.

Molly tilts his head, then smiles. “How about you save it for tomorrow?” he asks. “I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need all the luck I can get.”

\--

The walled city of Rexxentrum gleams in the morning light. Its gold-roofed towers jut out over the stone walls that surround the city, and even just approaching the entrance, Molly can already hear the sounds of music and laughter drifting out past the red gates. The rest of the Mighty Nein are just behind him, of course, but all of them are hidden at the moment—they can’t make it through the main entrance, the guards have likely been told to watch out for them, but they have grappling hooks and ropes and at least one potion of flight.

Molly might not have a potion or flight, but he does have Charm Person, a green cloak that Jester lent to him, a forged invitation, and an earring that Fjord claims will make people more likely to believe him, as well as red rose petals woven into his hair. Conning his way past the gates and into the city is a breeze.

“Oh, hey,” he adds, before he steps fully inside, “when’s the parade?”

“Oh,” says the guard, “around midday or so.”

“Where’s the best place for me to see it?”

“Intersection between the Academy’s Path and the Silk Road,” says the guard. “They’re gonna be setting off fireworks before they send the mages off, if you go there you’ll get the best view of both.”

“Thanks bunches,” says Molly, cheerfully, tossing the guard a pouch full of silver coins. Information freely given ought to be rewarded, and judging by the wide-eyed look on the man’s face when he opens the pouch, he doesn’t get paid that much.

Molly strolls into the city of Rexxentrum for maybe the first time in his life, and the first thing he sees are banners and festival lights, strung up above his head. Symbols of the Dwendalian Empire and paintings of the good King Dwendal are nailed to what feels like every post and door, and all around him people are shouting, _Victory! Peace! The war is ending!_

They’re being lied to and happily swallowing every word of it. Molly wouldn’t mind, ordinarily, because he likes to think he’s a good liar, but this lie isn’t going to make things even slightly better. This lie is self-serving, a sweet wine laced with poison, and Molly feels sick surrounded by all this light and joy, knowing that the reason for it is just a smokescreen for murder.

He looks around for a flash of green, a hint of blue in the crowds, searches for dark hair fading to white, pink hair and green armor, a staff with a torn piece of his coat. He doesn’t bother to look for a strange little halfling in the crowd, Nott is good at not being seen when she doesn’t want to be.

There’s a flash of red hair in the crowd. Molly turns on his heel, and chases after it, because it could be Caleb, it _could be_ —

He catches the person by their sleeve. They turn, and—no, it’s just a kid, a young human boy, maybe sixteen or seventeen or so judging by the pimples, his hair a mess of auburn curls the same shade as Caleb’s had been under the grime and the dirt. “Um,” says the kid.

“Oh, shit, sorry,” says Molly, his hand dropping to his side. “Sorry, you just—looked like somebody I knew.”

“I get that lot,” says the kid, running a hand through his hair. “It’s fine.”

Molly sighs, pats the kid’s shoulder, then turns away. Then he turns back around. “Do you live here?” he asks, an idea striking like lightning. He doesn’t know where the Silk Road and the Academy’s Path are, and he needs to find their intersection fast. “I may need a guide.”

“Okay, that’s new,” says the kid. “What do you need?”

“Someone to get me to the Silk Road and the Academy’s Path,” he starts, and the kid snaps his fingers as if it’s just sunk in.

“Right, you’re here for the procession!” the kid says, eyes brightening. “Yeah, I can take you there. It’ll be a tight fit, there’s quite a few people there already, but it’ll be worth it.”

“I’m sure it will be,” Molly says, with a bright grin. As the kid turns, he glances around and catches sight of a monk in cobalt blue, just emerging from an alleyway right next to a portrait of King Dwendal in his prime, and smiles. There’s Beau. And where Beau is, he’s sure the rest are too.

He looks away, takes a deep breath, and takes a step closer to meet his destiny.

\--

His destiny is fucking covered in little colorful triangles and has vendors selling questionable meat pies set up all over it.

Molly wouldn’t mind, normally. He _likes_ celebrations, and he also likes lies, and if it wasn’t the Empire doing it, if Caleb wasn’t in the middle of this shit, Molly would absolutely be all for this. But they are, and he is, and so Molly’s stomach churns uneasily. Which is a shame, because those meat pies smell...well, not delicious, but they definitely smell _interesting_. He hopes Nott and Beau save a couple for him.

The kid wasn’t lying. It’s crowded as fuck here, and Molly pushes his way into and through the crush of people until his legs hit wooden bars, keeping the crowd from pushing into the roads. Already he can see Crownsguard patrolling, sternly talking to the crowd and reminding their avid audience to keep their limbs inside the clearly-marked boundaries at all times. His hands rub over the bracers on his wrists, and his eyes roam over the crowds.

There’s Beau, her hair down from its usual topknot. There’s Jester, disguised as a dark-haired half-elf in blue, and Nott, disguised as her child under her ever-present hood. If he squints, he’s pretty sure that Crownsguard just slipping into view is Fjord, with Yasha and Caduceus somewhere in the crowds. He isn’t alone. The part with Caleb he’ll have to do himself, but his friends are here, they’ve got his back for everything else.

Molly breathes out slow, a hand reaching up to clasp the periapt resting on his chest. It pulses softly in his palm as he leans further out, just a little, just enough to catch sight of the procession now coming down the street. They’re taking their bloody time about it too, going at what fancy people call a “regal pace” and what Molly used to call “too fucking slow, Gustav, can we please speed it up now, we’ve run out of people to show off to”.

Riding in front is some poor herald on a spotted mare, tooting his horn and shouting about peace and magic and some shit. Molly doesn’t pay much attention to the words, and instead rolls forward onto the very tips of his toes and cranes his neck as much as he can. Behind the herald are a few soldiers clad in shining armor, the honor guard of the warmages. He tries to scoot forward just a little bit, just enough to catch sight of the mages behind them.

One of the Crownsguard steps in front of him. “Miss, Mister, Mixter,” says the man, wearily, “ _please_ , just get back in the crowd.”

“But I—” Molly starts.

“Please,” says the man, sounding exhausted, and Molly, more out of pity for the man than anything, takes a small step back and away from the bar. The guard nods, and then starts walking away from them. Molly lets out a breath, watching the procession trotting down the street.

The herald passes by him, still blowing his horn. The troops pass him by as well, all of them on brown warhorses. They’ll be tough to take in a fight, and likely trained to resist magical compulsion if they’re going with warmages. Either that, or they’re already under magical compulsion. Neither option’s a good one. Someone’s going to have to keep them busy.

Then the mages come.

The first is a human man in his thirties, with dark hair and amber eyes, his head held high and the symbol of the Soltryce Academy emblazoned on the shoulder of his white robes. The second is a human woman, her eyes a stormy grey, her blonde hair tied into a tight bun at the back of her head, the same symbol burned onto the back of her robes. As they pass, Molly sees them glancing his way, their eyes narrowing in suspicion, and schools his expression into something he hopes seems harmless.

They pass on. Two apprentices trail behind them, a young girl and a young boy of maybe fifteen and seventeen, respectively, on ponies not quite as magnificent as their elders’ horses and with postures not quite as naturally regal.

The next after them are two men. One is an old man in his seventies, long grey hair reaching down to mid-back, the sunlight glinting off the bald spot on top of his head. The other is—

Molly’s breath catches in his throat. _Caleb._

He doesn’t look good. He might be clean-shaven, his hair might be cut, he might be far cleaner than Molly’s ever seen him, but his eyes are downcast and his knuckles are white on the reins, like he wants to be anywhere but here. His robes are as white as curdled milk, and his horse pale as the snow on Glory Run Road.

“Mixter, I’m going to need you to step back,” says a Crownsguard, as Caleb’s horse draws closer and closer, and Molly blinks, realizing he’s stepped forward again. “Please, it’s already hard enough—”

“Oh, what the _fuck!_ ” a woman screams in the crowd, and the Crownsguard whips around in shock. “Someone stole my purse!”

“Ah, shit,” the Crownsguard mutters, and rushes away from Molly.

Caleb’s horse trots up—

—and Molly clicks his heels, and jumps over the bar. He hears shouts and yells, _stop them!_ rising up around him, slowed down by the spelled boots’ effect, but he vaults over the old man’s horse with a giddy laugh. Then he crashes right into Caleb, tackling him to the ground, his hood falling back.

“ _Mollymauk_?” says Caleb.

“Mr. Caleb,” says Molly, with a wild, ferocious grin, pinning him to the ground. “Like the dress?”

“Are those _roses_ ,” says Caleb, eyes wide.

“Mighty Nein, _fuck shit up_!” comes the shriek. It sounds like Fjord, Molly thinks, but then Caleb convulses under him, and Molly can only spare a moment to look around, catching sight of his friends dropping their disguises and pulling out their weapons, bursting from the crowds. He also sees the old man, lips pressed into a bloodless line, twisting a ring.

Ah. So that’s the rat bastard.

Molly bares his teeth at him, then Caleb gives an awful _scream_ , and Molly grips on tight to his robes. Bones crack, skin melts, and suddenly Molly’s no longer holding Caleb, but a snarling lion. His fingers dig into the fur, which is just as well, because sharp claws rake at his back, tearing through the cloak and the dress and meeting the leather armor underneath.

The lion rolls over, trying to crush him underneath. Molly swears, and tastes copper in his mouth. Off in the distance, he hears the screams of troops, the sound of fabric tearing only somehow _worse_ , and a really fucked-up version of a hyena’s laughing bark, but he’s a bit occupied with Caleb trying to fucking bite his arm off.

The teeth sink in. Molly screams, but holds on tight, screwing his eyes shut and trying not to curse at the feeling of cobblestones meeting his back a little too hard for his tastes. Off in the distance, Jester screams, “Fuck you!” at someone, but he can’t tell who.

Then the lion roars out in pain, and Molly holds on as it shudders and twists, writhing in his arms as its bones crack and its fur falls away. Its snout shrinks back into a human face, maddened golden eyes shifting to sky-blue, and Caleb stares down at Molly and says, “You have to go, you need to _leave_ , _bitte_ —”

“I came back from the dead for this, Widogast, I’m not letting go,” says Molly. He glances over to Ikithon, who flares down at him, and bares bloodstained teeth. “You hear that, dumbshit? _I’m not letting go._ ”

Ikithon purses his lips. “I suggest,” he starts, before he staggers and turns his horse around, a crossbow bolt now sticking out of his arm. “ _Who dares?!_ ” he roars.

Probably Nott, Molly bets. He cards his fingers through Caleb’s hair, one hand fisted tight in the fabric of his robes. “I’ve missed you,” he breathes.

“You too,” says Caleb, hope and despair warring in his eyes, “but you need to go, you _have to_ , I am not worth—”

He chokes suddenly. Molly’s other hand immediately seizes a fistful of Caleb’s shirt, just as scales burst from Caleb’s flesh, black and green, blue eyes turning green and pupils turning into something more reptilian. His canines grow, sharpening into fangs, and venom drips and sizzles onto the cobblestones.

Also, he’s slippery as _fuck_ , and Molly swears as he tries to keep a hold of the poisonous adder that Caleb’s been turned into. He has to roll over as Caleb’s trying to squirm out from his arms, and use his full weight and attention to bear down. “Don’t you bite the tattoo,” he mutters, “don’t you _dare_ , I saved so much gold for that.”

It’s a testament to how much of Caleb is still in there that the snake avoids his tattoos, sinking fangs into his shoulder instead. Molly sucks in a breath as the poison pulses through his system, his vision starting to go dark. “Fuck,” he mutters. How long is he going to last like this? How long are his friends going to last? He can hear whatever Fjord summoned screaming bloody murder, Jester’s battle cries as her lollipop swings around and chops down the men sent after her, the crowds screaming as they run the fuck away from this mess, Ikithon’s angry shouts as he starts throwing spells out himself, keeping a grip on his horse. Sensible of them to run.

“ _Gottsverdammt,_ ” a woman swears, and he hears buckles unclasping, boots hitting the pavement. “Eodwulf! We don’t have time!”

“I’m on it, I’m on it,” says another voice.

“Oh, no, you _don’t_ ,” comes Beau’s voice, and Molly hears the thud of her staff hitting flesh.

“Insolent tiefling,” snarls Ikithon, “you are going to _pay_ for—”

There’s a scream, a familiar, rage-filled cry. Yasha swings at him, and the archmage veers his horse away from her, as a swarm of insects descends upon him. “ _Don’t you touch him,_ ” she shrieks, and her voice booms like thunder.

The snake in Molly’s arms, pinned to the ground, suddenly goes still. Reptilian pupils grow round once more, surrounded by blue, and the snakeskin sloughs off Caleb, wet and gross, pulling Molly’s attention away. “ _Verdammt_ , you’re hurt,” says Caleb, a hand sneaking into his pocket. “You need to let go, you _have_ to let go, I suggest that you _let go_.”

The magic behind Caleb’s words pushes into Molly’s mind—

—and Molly grips him tighter. His knuckles must be paling by now, and his vision is swimming. “You’re an arsehole,” he says. “No. _No_ , I’m not letting you go.”

“I don’t want you dead,” says Caleb, despairing, just as Caduceus skids past them, bleeding from a cut to the forehead. “Herr Clay, can you _please_ —”

“Good to see you, Mr. Caleb,” says Caduceus, pleasantly, his hand glowing with divine light. He claps Molly on the shoulder, and a warmth blooms out from there, wounds knitting together and poison pushing out of him. “We’re going to need to run soon,” he adds.

“Little busy!” says Molly. “But thanks, Cad, you’re a star.”

Caduceus nods, then runs back into the fray, staggering only slightly when a spray of poison catches his side. Molly grips on tight to Caleb, and feels the shift begin once more. Bones break underneath him, Caleb screams and thrashes about, and Molly just about manages to keep his grip on Caleb’s robes as fabric and skin tear, feathers bursting forth. God, it’d be ironic, wouldn’t it, getting sliced to death by a peacock?

Unfortunately, Ikithon seems to have no sense of irony whatsoever, because Molly finds himself holding on to a screaming hawk, with brown feathers and angry eyes. He screws his eyes closed, and hisses out a pained curse when the hawk’s beak bites down onto his neck. He can _feel_ the trickle of blood as he has to pull the flailing hawk away from his neck, and oh, those are _wings_ , trying to squirm free of Molly’s arms and fly off.

It’s hard. It’s hard and he’s so _tired_ , and his friends need help, he can hear their shouts. Fjord’s trying to keep a hyena-like demon under control, firing off Eldritch Blasts at Ikithon, who’s finally come down from his fucking horse and is harrying Jester and Caduceus, who’re throwing spells at him. Yasha and Beau have teamed up, judging from the frantic shouting from the two full warmages and their apprentices, and Molly hopes they at least go easy on the apprentices. They’re young, they’re just kids. The Mighty Nein’s here to enact a rescue, not a bloodbath.

There’s the crack of ice, and Beau yells, “Mother _fucker_ , I hate that fucking cold spell! Jes, Deuces, hold on!”

“Jester!” shouts Yasha, her voice panicked.

Molly wants to help. Molly wants to run over, pull a sword, slice down the fuckers hurting his friends. Molly wants to run his sword through that fucking grey-haired rat bastard, see him choke on his own blood.

“Molly!” Nott shouts, and he catches sight of her little green form off in the distance. “Don’t let go!” Then she spins around, loads a bolt, and fires at one of the warmages, the man, who’s already heavily bleeding. With a curse, he goes down on one knee, the bolt sticking out of the back of his other knee. She reloads, then spins around to start shooting at Ikithon.

Molly tightens his grip on Caleb, and shrieks when the talons rake into his chest, finding a gap in the armor. _Fuck_ , that hurts, but he can’t let go now.

“Caleb,” says Molly, “sweetheart, come on, come on back—”

“Widogast,” booms Trent from across the battlefield, “ _finish him._ ” And he twists his ring.

The feathers fall away, and Caleb’s hands come up to Molly’s neck, squeezing tight. There’s a terrifying blankness in his eyes now, and Molly scrabbles at the back of Caleb’s neck, kicking underneath him, fingers seeking a chain under his—

—ow _fuck_ that chain is _hot_. Molly grits his teeth, draws on what little magic and _air_ he has, and says in Infernal, “ _If you kill me I’ll come back, I swear I will!_ ” It’s an empty threat at most, made as the darkness creeps into his vision, and Molly’s fingers close tight around the chain.

Bright, _searing_ pain flashes across his palm, shoots directly down Molly’s already abused arm. He grips on tight, then, with a scream, yanks as hard as he can.

The chain shatters.

Caleb’s hands loosen, as the pendant falls to the ground. “Mollymauk?” he whispers.

Molly grins weakly up at Caleb. In the distance, he hears the sounds of battle. “Hi, Caleb,” he says.

“Oh, _scheiße_ ,” says Caleb, then Molly feels him dragging him up to a more vertical position. “You are a fool, you should not have come here—”

“Caleb,” Molly says, tapping his cheek. He’s tapped out, barely able to do much more than that. He has a feeling if he tried to cast a blood maledict, he’d end up in a grave again. “We should run.”

Caleb blinks at him, then nods. “ _Ja_ ,” he says, then glances over. “I didn’t burn any spells today,” he says, thoughtfully. Then he calls, “Yasha, Beau, Fjord! Where is Nott? We need to get everyone here, I have a plan!”

“ _Traitor_ ,” spits Trent, eyes burning with hatred, lightning crackling around his fingers. He’s bleeding, his shoulder a pincushion for crossbow bolts, and the pattern of scorch marks on his robes and splashing onto his shirt—that’s Fjord. The ice digging into his thigh, that’s Jester. The little bite marks, that’s Caduceus’ beetles. “I should’ve ordered your _eyes_ put out. This, I’m going to rectify.” He flings out a spell.

Molly throws Caleb to the ground, and the bolt passes harmlessly over their heads, almost singing the rose petals in Molly’s hair. “Fucker,” Molly says, dazed. “Nott wove those in for me.”

A flash of green.

Nott shrieks, shrilly, “ _Not my boy, you sonuvabitch!_ ”

She fires her crossbow bolt, and it slams into Ikithon’s neck. He blinks, surprised, then reaches up a hand to pull it out. It doesn’t seem that deep, and Molly can see the sickly green energy gathering at his fingertips as he starts to make the gestures for some horrible spell—

—then the bolt _explodes_.

“Oh,” says Molly, watching the now-headless body of Trent Ikithon slump over. The two warmages, and their apprentices, shout in horror.

Caleb makes a small, pained noise, eyes wide. Molly breaks away a little, then undoes the clasp of his shredded cloak and throws it over Caleb’s shoulder. Then he leans against him again, shoving ineffectually at his side to call his attention away from the messy corpse that used to be an archmage. “Caleb,” he says, smacking at his side. “Caleb, come on, look at me. Don’t look at that, it’s not worth your time, look at me.”

Caleb blinks. He looks over at Molly, and says, with a shaky voice, “Are you—Are you all right?”

“I’m going to need a good long nap and possibly some food,” says Molly. “But otherwise? I’m all right.”

Yasha, bleeding profusely, stomps over to Molly’s side, an unconscious Caduceus slung unceremoniously over her shoulder. “Good to see you’re back, Caleb,” she says.

“It’s—It’s good to be back,” says Caleb, raising a hand to his neck, fingers clenching around nothing. “ _Gottern._ I—ow! Nott!”

“You’re _back_ ,” says Nott, attached to Caleb’s leg somehow. Molly has no idea how she got there from the spot where she killed Ikithon with an exploding bolt. He certainly hadn’t kept track of her.

Fjord runs over, with Jester unconscious in his arms. “We need to get out of here right now,” he says, brooking no argument. “Dunno how long that’s gonna last.”

Molly points at him. “When did you learn to do that?” he asks, pointing now at the hyena demon, on its last legs, snarling at the soldiers falling on it.

“This is the _worst time_ to be asking me that, Molly!” Fjord says.

Beau hobbles over. “Okay, everybody know where the exit is?” she asks. “Everybody who can walk, carry someone who can’t.”

“You’re limping,” says Molly. “Sure you don’t need carrying? I think Yasha might still have room.”

“You look like you had a boxing match with an eagle and lost,” Beau snipes. Then she pauses, and squints at the green hand now pushing gently at her shoulders, holding her somewhat haphazardly upright. “Uh. Thanks, Nott.”

“Welcome,” says Nott, still clinging to Caleb’s legs.

“ _Widogast!_ ” screams the woman, and Caleb’s head jerks upward at the sound of her voice. His face falls. “You can’t—You can’t _leave_ again!”

“And that is our cue,” says Caleb, tightly, staring at the two warmages—the woman screaming his name, the man staring in shock at the corpse of the archmage. Caleb tugs out a small quartz, holds his hand out, and murmurs something under his breath. Then he blows an arc across the top of the quartz, and a wall of ice forms in front of them as Caleb’s breath passes over the little gem. There’s a sudden shout, some cursing and a thud, and then Beau says, “Okay, okay, okay, let’s go!”

“Hey,” says Molly, leaning against Caleb as they make a break for the nearest alleyway. The intersection is thoroughly abandoned now, has been steadily emptying of people since before Caleb started turning into various creatures, so he’s not really worried about people seeing him in his bloodied state. “Mr. Caleb?”

“Mr. Mollymauk,” says Caleb, turning his head.

Molly leans forward to press his lips against Caleb’s. “Welcome back.”

\--

They take a couple of days off.

They deserve it, because they did just kill an archmage, and they need to pull together a plan for that. People are going to remember them: a very colorful group of mercenaries, who just came out of nowhere and killed an archmage of the Cerberus Assembly before kidnapping one of his apprentices, right on the day peace talks were supposed to take place.

There’s talk now, of course, that the peace talks were just a smokescreen. An anonymous but reliable and unexpected source had very quietly passed on, to someone trustworthy, information and documents of the real mission the mages were expected to go on.

Still, the Mighty Nein are persons of interest, at the very least, so they haul ass to a small nowhere forest, away from Rexxentrum and Ikithon and the Academy and the Assembly. And, incidentally, away from questions and possible retribution.

“You know,” says Jester, contemplatively, as she kicks her feet and splashes a meditating Beau with water, “I’m really going to miss visiting Pumat Sol. He’s like, a member of the Cerberus Assembly and everything, and I’m pretty sure they aren’t going to like us a whole lot anymore since we killed one of their members.”

“Oh, yeah,” says Caduceus, with a huff of laughter. “Me too. He was very nice, and he helped me pick out some new boots one time.”

“Ooh, so that’s where those boots came from!”

“I’d say you could borrow mine,” says Molly, his head in Yasha’s lap, “but I don’t think they’d fit.”

“They wouldn’t,” Caduceus confirms. “My feet are far bigger.”

Molly meets Jester’s eyes at that same exact moment, and the two of them simultaneously fall into giggles. Yasha, just above Molly, huffs out a quiet laugh too, and pats his shoulder. “Hold still,” she says. “You will ruin the crown.”

“I _am_ holding still,” says Molly.

“No you’re not,” says Beau, her eyes closed. Molly raises his middle finger in her direction, and Beau, her eyes _still closed_ , reciprocates, her mouth tugging up in a small smirk. Asshole. He’s missed her.

Nott clambers over, and squints down. “Yasha,” she begins, “what will it take for you to take my place in swimming lessons?”

“I thought Fjord gave up on that,” says Yasha.

“He did,” says Nott. “He’s trying to teach Caleb now.” She pauses, then says, “Oh gods _he might be drowning him right now_.”

“Hey, give me some credit,” huffs Fjord, climbing out of the river and shaking his head. Jester’s eyes climb up his legs and chest, very, very appreciatively. “I tried to drown one person one time, and she was a pirate trying to get our collective balls in a vice.”

“When did you meet pirates that pissed you off that much?” says Molly, and then his eyes are pulled away from Fjord to Caleb, clambering out of the river as well. He looks—well, he looks sort of like a bedraggled cat. Speaking of cat, Frumpkin winds around Caleb’s ankles as Caleb pulls himself up onto the riverbank, purring gently away. The jar of anchovies Molly bought him yesterday is out now, and every so often the wind carries its stench over to the rest of them.

Caleb bends down, scratching the fey cat behind his ears. “We stole her boat,” he says.

“By accident,” says Beau, now pulling one leg up over her head. Show-off.

“It’s a long story,” Fjord says, with a sigh.

“We killed most of the ship’s crew but for one person and accidentally commandeered their ship,” says Yasha, valiantly trying to summarize. It fails miserably, because Molly still has no idea why all of that happened.

Molly grins, anyway. “Well, we’ve got time,” he says. “Why don’t you all tell me the details now?”

\--

Molly kisses Caleb, that night, under a sky full of stars, the Lovers twinkling bright above them.

Caleb presses a hand to his chest when they break away, where the eagle’s talons had scored awful scars into Molly’s flesh. They’re faded now, but they pale in comparison to the angry, puckered flesh where the glaive once sank in. “I am so sorry, _liebling,_ ” he says.

“I’m not,” says Molly, resting his forehead against Caleb’s. “I’d do it again, if I had to. I love you, and I’ve been in love with you since you said that you believed in second starts, and the only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t get to say that before now.”

“I tried to _kill you._ ” Caleb rakes a hand through his hair. “I killed my _parents_. I am a garbage person, how can you be in love with that?”

“Would you do both of those things now, given the chance?”

“No!”

“Would you leave Nott in a cold, dark, lonely cell?”

“Gods, no!”

“Would you willingly turn us all into the Crownsguard? We’ve got fairly large bounties on our heads, individually, I can’t imagine what the collective bounty’s like for all of us.”

“ _Nein_ , why are you asking all this?”

Molly presses a kiss to his forehead. “You’re a good man who looks at a goblin and sees past the sharp teeth,” he says, “and when it’s not forced, your loyalty and trust and love are no small things to have. You’re smart, you care about people, you told me you believed in second starts and didn’t press me further on a past I didn’t want to know anything about, and you could have left so many times, but you stayed.”

“Those are not good reasons,” says Caleb. “Not for risking your life. Not for almost dying.”

“It’s really cute you think dying is going to keep me down for long,” says Molly, and gets a frown out of him. He sighs, and says more seriously, “Caleb, I had all the chances in the world to walk away. I could have said no when the plan was being cooked up. I could have said no when your familiar tried to make a deal with me. I could have let you go. I didn’t.” He cards his fingers through Caleb’s hair. “I love you. Maybe that’s not a good reason for what I did, fine. It’s still true.”

Caleb lets out a soft, shuddering breath. “You are so good,” he whispers. “You are so much better than I deserve.”

“I like to think I’m good,” says Molly, “but it’s not a question of deserve, love. It never has been. I just—love you, that’s all. Do you love me back?”

Caleb traces a thumb over the peacock feathers tattooed on the side of Molly’s cheek, tender and intimate. “ _Ja_ ,” he says, and that is the truth of his heart, laid bare for Molly to see. If their positions were reversed, Caleb is certain he would do the same as Molly did. Though maybe with a touch more subtlety. “Yes. I do.”

“Then let’s see where this goes,” says Molly, and he leans in close.

Caleb meets him halfway, and lays him down on the grass.

“Let’s,” he says, and lets Molly pull him down into a kiss under the starry sky.


End file.
